Milinkevich's assistant: Belarusians have never had better life than that under Lukashenka's rule

Alyaksandr Lahvinets gave a strange opinion of the life of Belarusians under dictatorship.

A round table discussion with participation of opposition representatives of Burma and Belarus was held in the capital of the Czech Republic. The discussion was attended by public and political activists from Belarus. Some of them gave an unexpected estimate of the Belarusian reality, Radio Svaboda reports.

Alyaksandr Lahvinets, the deputy head of For Freedom movement, said the Belarusian opposition was divided into the “pro-western” and “pro-Russian” groups. The politician said Belarusians had never had a higher level of well-being as under Lukashenka's rule. He noted Belarusians were not ready for changes and called dictator's opponents “radicals”.

The annual meetings of politicians and intellectual in Prague was organized for the first time in 1997 on initiative of then Czech president Vaclav Havel. Havel, who planned to held just one event, had been one of organizers and patron of the Forum 2000. It has been the first Forum without Havel.

This year's meeting focusing on media and politics relations gathered a number of prominent people, among them former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Romanian President Emil Constantinescu, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, scientist and brother of former Czech president Ivan Havel, one of the leaders of the Burmese opposition and associate of Aung San Suu Kyi – Ko Ko Gyi, European Commissioner Stefan Fule and others.